 Okay, great. So, Reinhold, thank you for this wonderful setting and for joining me today. You have, you wear too many hats, but the two that principal hats you wear at GSEP are the sequence director for the history theory curriculum for the MRC program, as well as the director of the Buell Center for American Architecture. I wanted first to really discuss strategically the first shift you made to the history theory sequence moving from this notion of architectural history to a notion of questions around architectural history and what that represents in terms of opening up that field. Yeah, well there's probably no more urgent time than now to ask as many critical questions as we can about our world, our history, our societies, the world that we so evidently share. And so we have an amazing faculty, I have to say first of all, and I'm very, very privileged and proud honestly to teach with such great colleagues on the history or history and theory faculty here at GSEP. And to be honest, part of what we have done in the last few years is to maximize kind of in a curricular sense the interactions that the MRC students and by extension also the AAD students have with that faculty. And by turning what was a sequence that was previously known as architectural history one and two, the introduction, introductory lecture courses to the history of architecture since about the middle of the 18th century up to the middle or end of the 20th century, we've been turning that into a series of seminars that in which the students interact more directly with the faculty and do so in a more, shall we say, socratic manner where there's more opportunity for dialogue, there's more opportunity to raise the kind of questions that students come with. I mean, you know, it's the students very frequently you're asking the questions they represent in many ways, the Q and QAH questions in architectural history. The other thing that we did with that so it was to shift in a sense the time and space coordinates of the curriculum a little bit. We teach basically the history of architectural modernity broadly understood. We now in a sense frame that in terms of the long arc that begins more or less in around 1800 around the world, literally around the world in what is still known in most quarters as the Industrial Revolution, although that term itself is up for some questioning. The point of that is to emphasize the role that architecture and urbanism and landscape, I should say, I'm standing here in Riverside Park on the west side of Manhattan, which is an object of park space from the 19th century. And it's the kinds of spaces that we study in part one, the first semester, the fall of QAH. So these kinds of spaces are directly connected to many, many processes that we now recognize with terms like globalization, global cities and so on. So for example, a quick little story about Riverside Park. It was designed first by Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of Central Park. Parks in the 90s and later in the 19th century were called at that time the lungs of the city. They were the places where people literally came out to breathe. Why? You know, why because there was soot in the air. There was coal and oil, but mostly coal, being burned for fuel to power big cities like New York and the industries that were driving them. This park had actually a train line that that ran still does. It's now the Amtrak Line and the Freight Line. That is well known, very world famous now at the other end in Lower Manhattan as the Heinlein. It's the same line. And so basically what happened is that train line came up along the west side of the island and then at Nile. And Olmsted designed Riverside Drive with its kind of curvilinear facades, these grand buildings you may be able to see behind me. And a kind of buffer of a park before you got to the trains. Subsequently, Robert Moses, another major figure now in the 20th century in the development of American cities, particularly New York City was the city at that time, he was the Parks Commissioner actually led the redesign of the park or the development of the park to cover over the railway because people couldn't breathe. And so and simultaneously there was an order to convert all these trains called coal powered trains to electricity. And so this mirrors many of the things that we're witnessing right now in our world today. And this is also very importantly, one of the kind of central episodes in the process, long process by which a city like New York became what we now call a global city. It was the industry, the trade, the commerce, the integration and the growth of the city up now in this area north where Columbia is on the west side. So that's the kind of little you know synopsis, the kind of little tutorial, the kind of things that we try to discuss in the way we kind of connect historical processes to contemporary concerns, but also to to cross you know connect the dots in a sense doing something that might be happening in New York to something that might be happening on the other side of the world where some of the goods that are being shipped to New York are coming from. So that and it's you know we've found that this this QAH model has enabled us to to have conversations about that where students coming from all over the world can ask questions about how this history connects with histories that they may be more familiar with and so on and so forth. So that's you know maybe how we have sought to to to deep provincialize to globalize to you know open up the the curriculum. I mean two things that brings to mind is one is this opening up you kind of expanded the library of references and been working on that as an effort and two moving back and forth not you know no longer just focusing on the architectural object but you know what is in between the objects and these kind of relations and and what's fascinating is you know just the story you just told right about this moment is you know as you say mirrors so much this moment we are in now and how history can really teach us as designers as architects you know to think about you know other ways of projecting the future and in particular I you know wanted to tie that sort of teaching to your other hat the director of the view center and you know how you've I think really advanced this notion of you know what is architectural research today and how can we bring people together the disciplines together to think about architecture for the future cities for the future in light of all the concerns around climate health care and more and I think the project that happened last spring public works for renewed deal which was initiated by the dual center and brought together faculty from across the school but also I think brought together kind of historian theorists and practitioners I think that kind of cross section is so exciting to the students and I want you to expand a little bit on that and and how we can learn from that to move forward well yeah absolutely so first of all what are the things I should add about history about historians and and you know about my wonderful colleagues on the faculty is that is any the one thing the one truth in a sense that that I think any historian can affirm can can can explain is that things change right and and so now uh in in contemporary conditions one of the most massive and consequential changes that we are grappling with is is climate change and it really is the climate question in a sense that that has that bridges between these two areas that we're talking about the q you know the questions with which we begin the history theory sequence I should add that of course there are other more specialized seminars that are our distribution requirements in north and south the global north and global south in different time periods for each mr student later in their in their three years with us but the the we do try to kind of open up the climate question and connect it with other social questions and historical questions and technological questions and artistic questions right at the beginning and and you know and every faculty member has different a different way of doing that in my own teaching in that course in qah and in my work at the Beale Center I have tried to emphasize relations between climate and society and so it's kind of in that spirit that the public works project that you mentioned was we developed that project in last semester last year in at the Beale Center so the basic idea first of all I should say that I'm also standing in one of the prototypes for one of these kinds of projects that Riverside Park was actually mostly built it's in its major kind of when they actually buried the the rail line and made and extended the park down to the to the west side highway near the water this was built during the New Deal and it was built with funds from the new the New Deal programs with the works project administration progress administration so that that's an example of a public works you know literally standing in one of the most amazing instances of what what the government support with intelligent design and and thinking and foresight planning planning long-term planning and so on can achieve for a city so you know that kind of thinking we could say sort of New Deal in the US contact New Deal style thinking and many other examples around the world it was what inspired this this project that's why it's called public works we basically asked you know were we to to embark on a large scale significant effort nationally kind of correlated to the Green New Deal proposal that has circulated now very widely in the American public sphere and around the world then what might it look like and how might might that happen and we encourage people to think about this critically not just to execute some sort of predetermined program but to think critically again this is the Q part the questions in in all their different disciplines and so we got together and we worked all work together with Dean's office and and many colleagues in the faculty to put together a group of what turned out to be nine courses across the curriculum it's documented on on the website on the Buell Center website on the GSAP website they're interviews with faculty with students there's you know so on student work and in which basically the Green New Deal was was as a formulated in HR 109 the house US House resolution that pretty much started this conversation as a starting point for the studio seminars works as basically policy colloquia and so on that that that we we helped to set up we also coordinated with colleagues outside the unit and this happened to be at the University of Pennsylvania there was a big conference at Penn that the Buell Center co-sponsored and and we actually we brought all the students as like 150 students to Philadelphia to spend the day there's amazing concerts Naomi Klein as a keynote all the kind of sunrise movement people and all the very important kind of figures who have been publicly active in in Green New Deal and related thinking were there and and the students could kind of get a sense of the larger conversation of which this was a part now of course we're in an academic institution so so we our job is to ask questions is is not you know and in this case to ask questions about policy but also about public life so our colleagues and each and their own way interpreted these these this kind of general suggestion or publication in in various studio briefs or or they were travel involved going to different parts of the country to often work with distressed communities kind of what are known as frontline communities people who work who are often right really right on the front lines of climate change and and to address different scales different aspects for example the whole urban design curriculum for one semester was focused on the Hudson Valley specifically in relationship to this the Green New Deal the implications for that in that part of the country so we we hope to we intend to continue with this work now of course we're in a different and a kind of it's an even more dramatically urgent kind of crisis situation in which we're we're dealing with an immediate crisis but we're also thinking and and about the connections between these two things and anticipating that what we really do have to do is to rebuild our societies and I say this plural in a manner that is that is sustainable and and that is equitable and and that is is not is is ready in a sense and and attempts to mitigate shall we say to be to use a term that's in circulation today climate change to change climate change to to to limit its most its worst effect and perhaps ultimately even to to to halt it or if not even reverse it so that's the kind of thinking that that we're we're kind of engaged in at the bills thank you Reinhard I think that what's exciting you know I can I'm imagining students listening to you is that you know first of all history is so alive it's so exciting right now it's now history is happening as we speak and to make it you know to make it so tangible and and and and and you know kind of empowering students I think to think about change and the possibility of change